Engaging Ideas - 5/12/2017

Every week we curate stories and reports on complex issues. This week: A reflection on making time for civic engagement when you have errands to run. A natural experiment that sheds new light on boosting test scores. Only one in four agrees that our higher education system is fine just the way it is. An interactive chart connects college majors to career paths. Why health care leaders should develop value-based care measures.

Democracy

Writing
about campaign finance: A tip sheet (Harvard’s Shorenstein
Center)
Running for office in the U.S. can be an expensive affair. This tip sheet helps
journalists find and track the influence of money in politics.

Are
election hacks the new normal? (MIT Technology Review)
Russian hackers tried, unsuccessfully, to hijack the French election—the U.K.
and Germany are likely to be targeted next.

Making
time for civic engagement when you have errands to run (Daily
Breeze)
When you want change in government, you need to make your voice heard. You need
to call your elected officials. You need to speak up at town halls. You need to
fund organizations supporting your cause, pen letters to the editor and seize
every opportunity to incite change.

Advancing
the Art of Collaboration (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
This series, produced in partnership with BBB's Give.org, calls on the social
sector to embody a new and pioneering collaborative spirit based in trust so
that it can reach broader audiences, share the risk involved in experimentation,
and accomplish more than any single organization could do alone.

K-12 Education

#ShowTheEvidence:
Building a Movement Around Research, Impact in Ed Tech (The
74)
This is the first in a series of essays surrounding the EdTech Efficacy
Research Symposium, a gathering of 275 researchers, teachers, entrepreneurs,
professors, administrators, and philanthropists to discuss the role efficacy
research should play in guiding the development and implementation of education
technologies. This series was produced in partnership with Pearson, a
co-sponsor of the symposium co-hosted by the University of Virginia’s Curry
School of Education, Digital Promise, and the Jefferson Education Accelerator.

One way
to boost test scores? Make sure students get morning sunshine, new research
shows (Chalkbeat)
The study, published last month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Resources,
looks at districts in Florida and uses a novel approach: the fact that some
areas in the state operate in the central time zone while others use eastern
time. That means that if one district starts school at 8 a.m. Eastern and one
right next door starts at 8 a.m. Central, students are actually heading to
school at different times, relative to the sunrise — creating a natural
experiment for the researchers to study how that affects student achievement.

When
Elmo And Big Bird Talk To Refugees (NPR)
Sesame Workshop is creating educational programming for refugee children around
the world. But first, it's doing a lot of homework to make sure the lessons it
teaches are the right ones.

Higher Education & Workforce Development

Educating
the Public on the Value of a College Degree (The Chronicle of
Higher Education)
In contradiction to all the evidence of the increasing value of postsecondary
education, a clear majority of our focus-group participants said they believed
that the economic value of a college degree has stagnated or even declined. Do
half of all student-loan borrowers owe less than $13,000? Yes. But that is not
what a majority of the focus-group participants believed. And fewer than half
of them think that colleges and universities focus on managing costs and
limiting tuition increases to the best of their ability.

Varying
Degrees: How America Perceives Higher Education (New
America)
This week, New America hosted a graduation-week event to take a closer look at
America’s thoughts and perceptions of higher education and discuss the
implications of these findings for students, institutional leaders, and
policymakers. Only one in four Americans agrees that our higher education
system is fine just the way it is. Millennials -- who are on track to be the
most educated generation to date and therefore have the most experience with
the system -- are more likely than other generations to think this (only 13
percent agree higher education is fine how it is). Follow the conversation
online with #VaryingDegrees.

Essay:
What Policies for Improving Graduation Rates Actually Work?
(Inside Higher Ed)
As students across the country prepare to receive their degrees, five authors
-- Nicholas A. Bowman (University of Iowa), Tricia A. Seifert (Montana State),
Gregory C. Wolniak (NYU), Matthew J. Mayhew (Ohio State) and Alyssa N.
Rockenbach (North Carolina State), the authors of How College Affects Students
-- explore how to increase their numbers.

Common
Application Says New Transfer App Will Better Serve Nontraditional Students (The
Chronicle of Higher Education)
The Common App’s current transfer application closely resembles the version
that high-school seniors use to apply to four-year institutions. Yet asking a
35-year-old with a full-time job and two kids for the same parental information
that teenagers provide isn’t an ideal way to engage so-called nontraditional
students, Ms. Rickard said. "That’s not acknowledging who they are and
where they’re coming from."

Interactive
Chart: Putting Your Major to Work: Career Paths after College (The
Hamilton Project)
The 3.4 percent of English majors who become managers earn a median salary of
$77,000, while the 8.3 percent of their counterparts who become elementary and
middle school teachers earn $51,000. Different career paths and the associated
earnings differences for students with the same college major are pervasive and
important for understanding both the benefits of college majors and of college
itself.

Why America needs a 'do-over' on Medicaid reform (Econo Times)
Republican leaders have argued the current Medicaid system is failing and in need of reform. Democrats, including former President Obama, have charged that the AHCA harms the well-being of poor and vulnerable groups. These writers wholeheartedly agree – with both sides. We question the wisdom of steep cuts to an already underfunded Medicaid system. But the status quo is not working either. So what should we do?